City: Bengaluru

Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party will be participating in a road show today - on March 15, 2014. The road show route has been issued by Traffic Police as an advisory, in order to avoid the routes. The route and approximate timings have been given below. Road show will start at 9.30 am from Hebbal Bus Stand. It will move to Bellary Road towards Ganganagar Market at 10am. Then the show will move through Ganganagar 5th main, R T Nagar Bus Stand, R T Nagar Main Road, T V Tower Junction, Jayamahal Road, Cantonment Railway Station, Queens Road and…

On March 11, a reputed newspaper published an article — ‘It's no lottery: BDA doubles flat rates’. The article stated that applicants who had been allotted 2 BHK flats by the BDA as part of its low-cost housing scheme, had started receiving notices from the BDA, informing them that they had to pay Rs 10 lakh over the original cost price of Rs 7.5 lakh, and those who had been allotted 3 BHK flats should expect to receive notices to pay an additional Rs 15 lakh. The article obviously caused a furore among those who had been allotted flats so…

The past week has certainly set the tempo for the oncoming Lok Sabha Elections in Bengaluru. A frenzy of sop announcements, inaugurations, stone-laying, flagging off activities were seen just days prior to the announcement of dates for the elections when the Model Code of Conduct would be enforced. The elections were announced on the March 5th. About 72.62 lakh Bangaloreans will get to vote on April 17th. Notifications for filing nominations for the 28 constituencies in the state will be announced on March 19. Accounting of expenditure incurred by the candidate for poll expenses will be tabulated from the day…

You live in Yelahanka and always thought you belong to Bengaluru - but no, you can’t vote for any candidate from Bangalore - your area falls under Chikballapur constituency! There are many areas like this in Bangalore. Knowing the boundaries of the Parliamentary constituencies is important - because some of the wards that fall in BBMP limits actually belong to Bangalore Rural or Chikballlapur when it comes to Parliamentary voting, which is totally different when we consider the profile of the urban and rural areas. https://opencity.in/explainer/how-to-find-your-constituency-in-bengaluru/ Here’s a list of the Assembly constituencies and wards that fall in each Parliamentary…

Lakes in Bengaluru invoke the same awe as does the Ganga at Varanasi or the Yamuna in Delhi. Indeed lakes are very special to the city of Bangalore. Without any river passing by, lakes were the natural source of water for the plateau, now called Bangalore. Lakes have been the lifeline of the city and its surroundings till recently. Credible accounts exist as to how the Sankey Tank served as a source of drinking water till quite recently. The dependence on the lakes started easing in the sixties, thanks to bountiful supply from the Cauvery.   Bangalore has grown exponentially…

Haven't you seen asphalting going on in super-speed recently in your area? Haven't most of the roads been improved recently? So far we were all neglected - now the public good is seen as supreme. Why - oh, why? No prizes for guessing - the election season is here! Announcement of the Model Code of Conduct by the Election Commission means that new welfare and populist schemes cannot be announced by the governments during this period. It does not mean a full stop in the work that a government does. Political parties that haven’t done anything through out the period…

It was late Saturday evening. I had gone to Brigade Road for dinner with my colleagues. I was taking the bus back home since my bike was sitting in the garage. I knew I had to finish my dinner quickly and exit before 10 or I was going to have a hard time getting back home. Time flew by with the colleagues. Before I knew it, it was post 10.20 pm. Hastily I rushed towards the nearest bus stand. Unfortunately, I was too late. I missed the last bus which travels from Brigade Road to Shivajinagar Bus Station. Shivajinagar is…

It was a rare scene on the streets of J P Nagar, where the educated, young, middle and upper class citizens took to the streets batting for a politician. Yes - a politician officially this day onwards - as Nandan Nilekani was inducted to Congress officially on March 9. Dressed in white T-shirt and holding banners that said ‘We are together with Nandan,’ many of Nandan Nilekani’s colleagues, software engineers, youth, men and women from various walks of life walked from Lalbagh East gate to Hemachandra Sagar Memorial Hall near Ashok Pillar in Jayanagar 1st Block. This was a “walk…

630 am, the sun rises, and suddenly there is activity. A gaunt man in a white shirt and dhoti emerges from a dilapidated colonial bungalow and sets up a tea stall outside the Coconut Grove restaurant, and soon there is a swarm of customers huddled together in the morning cold. Security guards, street sweepers, sanitation workers, newspaper delivery men suddenly materialize. V and X desperately need a chai. They blend in, making small talk with this motley group – there is a certain warmth among the customers of a roadside tea-stall in the morning quiet, and V and X were…

With the Election Commission announcing the poll schedules, the D-Day you’ve been waiting for is just 40 days away. Chief Election Officer for Karnataka, Anil Kumar Jha said in a press conference in Bengaluru on March 5 that the model code of conduct is already in place as the elections have been notified. This means there can be no public function, rallies or road show by any political party without obtaining proper permission from police. There can be no new programmes announced by the governments though the existing programmes can continue to work. There can be no hoardings of politicians…